I’d like to bring something to your attention. It’s a dynamic that is always true. We have seen it in these latter Chapters of Leviticus. There is a cause-and-effect relationship between pagan religion and corrupt sinful living and the cause-and-effect of worshipping God and holy living. This truth is found throughout the Bible. It’s found anytime God’s people are in contact with pagan society. We saw it in 1 Corinthians when Paul told them not to go to the temple and there eat meat sacrificed to idols and then come back and think you can take the cup and eat the bread of the Lord’s Supper.
False religion of all kinds will always lead to sinful living
True worship of God will always lead to holy living
So, with this dynamic in mind we must also see that it is really a useless endeavor to seek to live as God wants us to live if in fact, we are not worshipping Him rightly. The reason is holy living always is a manifestation of holy and godly worship. Right living flows from a heart made right by God. That’s the only place it comes from.
To worship pagan false deities is to live in sin because as the Bible clearly teaches us point blank, we become what we worship.
Psalm 115:1–11 (ESV)
115 Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory,
for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness!
2 Why should the nations say,
“Where is their God?”
3 Our God is in the heavens;
he does all that he pleases.
4 Their idols are silver and gold,
the work of human hands.
5 They have mouths, but do not speak;
eyes, but do not see.
6 They have ears, but do not hear;
noses, but do not smell.
7 They have hands, but do not feel;
feet, but do not walk;
and they do not make a sound in their throat.
8 Those who make them become like them;
so do all who trust in them.
9 O Israel, trust in the Lord!
He is their help and their shield.
10 O house of Aaron, trust in the Lord!
He is their help and their shield.
11 You who fear the Lord, trust in the Lord!
He is their help and their shield.
Do you see the cause and effect when it comes to idol worship of the pagans? To worship a dead idol is to become dead like that idol. They have eyes, ears, noses, mouths, hands and feet but cannot do anything because they are the works of human hands.
God is not made of silver or gold but is in the heavens. He cannot be seen. True religion is to worship the true God and the more we worship and trust Him the more we become like Him. Sanctification is the process of becoming more and more like Christ.
You will only grow as a Christian if you are consistently engaged in biblical worship of God the Father through His Son, Jesus Christ. If you are not then to attempt Christian growth and maturity will be fruitless you will just be spinning your wheels.
Second emphasis of this Chapter is to see that sin is often a violation of God’s created order. God’s created order is a very good and right thing. We must seek to remain within God’s boundaries.
For example, marriage is between one man and one woman anything else goes against God’s created order and is sinful.
He alone is to be worshipped. Anything that goes against God’s created order is sin.
We will also see here that to break these boundaries often warranted the death penalty.
1. Warnings Against Pagan Worship (20:1-6)
20 The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “Say to the people of Israel, Any one of the people of Israel or of the strangers who sojourn in Israel who gives any of his children to Molech shall surely be put to death. The people of the land shall stone him with stones. 3 I myself will set my face against that man and will cut him off from among his people, because he has given one of his children to Molech, to make my sanctuary unclean and to profane my holy name. 4 And if the people of the land do at all close their eyes to that man when he gives one of his children to Molech, and do not put him to death, 5 then I will set my face against that man and against his clan and will cut them off from among their people, him and all who follow him in whoring after Molech.
6 “If a person turns to mediums and necromancers, whoring after them, I will set my face against that person and will cut him off from among his people.
There were various cultic religions and various practices. Probably the vilest was the worship of the false god or really the demon Molech.
The Phoenicians were a loosely gathered group of people who inhabited Canaan (modern-day Lebanon, Syria, and Israel) between 1550 BC and 300 BC. In addition to sexual rituals, Moloch worship included child sacrifice, or “passing children through the fire.” It is believed that idols of Moloch were giant metal statues of a man with a bull’s head. Each image had a hole in the abdomen and possibly outstretched forearms that made a kind of ramp to the hole. A fire was lit in or around the statue. Babies were placed in the statue’s arms or in the hole. When a couple sacrificed their firstborn, they believed that Moloch would ensure financial prosperity for the family and future children.
God told His people, to practice such evil was to warrant the death penalty. God wanted the horror of the judgement to match the crime and be a safeguard against others practicing this evil.
2. Worship God and Be Sanctified (20:7-8)
7 Consecrate yourselves, therefore, and be holy, for I am the Lord your God. 8 Keep my statutes and do them; I am the Lord who sanctifies you.
Here there is the proper progression.
Consecration-
In the Bible the word consecration means “the separation of oneself from things that are unclean, especially anything that would contaminate one’s relationship with a perfect God.” Consecration also carries the inference of sanctification, holiness, or purity.
The importance of being consecrated or pure in our relationship with God is emphasized in an incident in the book of Joshua. After forty years in the wilderness, the children of Israel were about to cross over the Jordan River into the Promised Land. They were then given a command and a promise: “Joshua told the people, ‘Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the LORD will do amazing things among you’” (Joshua 3:5).
Set yourselves apart from pagan religious practices.
Stay or be holy- Continue to be set apart.
Worship only the true God- Keep God’s statutes.
I am the Lord who sanctifies you.
We see the dynamic we mentioned before. Proper worship of the true God makes us more and more like Him. We become who we worship.
3. God’s People Must Not Worship False Gods and Do what They Do but Only Worship the True God and Live in Holiness (20:9-27)
9 For anyone who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death; he has cursed his father or his mother; his blood is upon him.
10 “If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death. 11 If a man lies with his father’s wife, he has uncovered his father’s nakedness; both of them shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them. 12 If a man lies with his daughter-in-law, both of them shall surely be put to death; they have committed perversion; their blood is upon them. 13 If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them. 14 If a man takes a woman and her mother also, it is depravity; he and they shall be burned with fire, that there may be no depravity among you. 15 If a man lies with an animal, he shall surely be put to death, and you shall kill the animal. 16 If a woman approaches any animal and lies with it, you shall kill the woman and the animal; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.
17 “If a man takes his sister, a daughter of his father or a daughter of his mother, and sees her nakedness, and she sees his nakedness, it is a disgrace, and they shall be cut off in the sight of the children of their people. He has uncovered his sister’s nakedness, and he shall bear his iniquity. 18 If a man lies with a woman during her menstrual period and uncovers her nakedness, he has made naked her fountain, and she has uncovered the fountain of her blood. Both of them shall be cut off from among their people. 19 You shall not uncover the nakedness of your mother’s sister or of your father’s sister, for that is to make naked one’s relative; they shall bear their iniquity. 20 If a man lies with his uncle’s wife, he has uncovered his uncle’s nakedness; they shall bear their sin; they shall die childless. 21 If a man takes his brother’s wife, it is impurity. He has uncovered his brother’s nakedness; they shall be childless.
22 “You shall therefore keep all my statutes and all my rules and do them, that the land where I am bringing you to live may not vomit you out. 23 And you shall not walk in the customs of the nation that I am driving out before you, for they did all these things, and therefore I detested them. 24 But I have said to you, ‘You shall inherit their land, and I will give it to you to possess, a land flowing with milk and honey.’ I am the Lord your God, who has separated you from the peoples. 25 You shall therefore separate the clean beast from the unclean, and the unclean bird from the clean. You shall not make yourselves detestable by beast or by bird or by anything with which the ground crawls, which I have set apart for you to hold unclean. 26 You shall be holy to me, for I the Lord am holy and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine.
27 “A man or a woman who is a medium or a necromancer shall surely be put to death. They shall be stoned with stones; their blood shall be upon them.”
The first important point we see here is that not only does God rename the sins from Leviticus Chapter 18 but here in 20, He also includes the punishments. We should also see the severity of the sins by the fact that many warrant the death sentence by stoning.
God is here, condemning the practices of the pagans that His people would come in contact with.
I think we can surmise the Chapter by…
Don’t worship and then live like the Pagans but worship God and live holy lives before Him.
The punishment for partaking in pagan worship and then committing the abominations was death.
Cursing Parents– here it is to bring a demonic curse of them to kill them. Here is the destruction of the family.
Adultery– another destruction of the family or in this case possible two families.
Incest– violating God’s created order
These things are still sin today. Incest was the sin in which Paul addressed in 1 Corinthians 5 and told the Church to remove the guilty man from their midst.
Homosexuality- here is another that goes against God’s created order.
Bestiality– Going against God’s created order.
There were some acts that did not receive the death penalty but were still punished by God. Some God punished with childlessness. They would have not posterity.
4. Looking to the New Testament
This is a timeless text of Scripture for us to live by.
False religion leads to sinful living while true worship of God leads to holy living.
As we worship God through Jesus Christ, we come to know Him and love Him. We engage in love not lust, life giving and life enhancing not self-gratifying and unnatural. We live a life based on God’s revelation and not patterned after the spirit of the age.
The NT condemns these practices mentioned in Leviticus 20. The NT also tells us that those who commit such practices are deserving of death.
Romans 1:18–32 (ESV)
18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
26 For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; 27 and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.
28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. 29 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.
They deserve to die. Same penalty.
The wages of sin is death.
1- The Church cannot approve of these sins.
2- We have a Redeemer.
The NT also teaches us that while we all deserve death, God stands ready to forgive all who come to Christ by faith. We have been taken from death to life. The Gospel tells us that Jesus Christcame into the world to die our death penalty. All who come to God by faith in Jesus will be forgiven for all their sins. This is what we must promote to be a biblical Church. Sin is sin and requires the death penalty but Jesus came to forgive His people and by His death our sins are paid for in full.
Resources Used:
Holiness to the Lord by Allen Ross
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